All parties entering this contest must be 18 years of age.Entries must be received by Friday, September 7, 2012. The drawing will be held on Saturday, September 8, 2012. All entries are electronically entered on a computerized spreadsheet and a winner will be picked by computer on Saturday, September 8, 2012. If your name is picked as the winner, I will post your firstname on my blog site and send you a direct e-mail. You will have 4 business days to respond to my e-mail notification. If there is no response, your entry will be null (void), and another entry will be pulled by computer.

How to Enter

All entries must be e-mailed to: SandyLivesay@Gmail.com. Please include your full name, date of birth, and email address. If your entry is missing the required information, you won’t be entered in the drawing. Good Luck Everyone!!!!

Thursday, August 30, 2012

I wanted to take this opportunity to welcome Rev Paul and lisa.berry01. Thank you for joining my blog. Hey Blogger friends, check out Rev. Paul's blogWay Up North,you won’t be disappointed. I couldn't find a blog for lisa.berry01. Glad to have you following my blog, please sit back and enjoy the ride.

Monday, August 27, 2012

I wanted to take this opportunity to welcome Kathi N. (I’m not sure if Kathi has a blog, since I can’t find one). Thank you for joining my blog. Glad to have you following my blog, please sit back and enjoy the ride.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

After 10 days of stirring and setting in a dark cool cabinet, it was time to complete the final process to my raspberry vinegar recipe.

Pour the contents from my sealed jar into a colander to strain the pieces of raspberries from the vinegar into a bowl. Then to catch the fine pieces of raspberries, I strained the mixture again.This time I placed a coffee filter inside the colander to catch all the small particles of raspberries.

After straining, pour the vinegar in a stainless steel pot.Turn on your stove and heat the vinegar.Make sure to constantly stir, you don’t want your vinegar to burn.When the vinegar starts to boil, add 3 cups of sugar and continue to stir until sugar has totally dissolved.Reduce the heat on your stove to about medium – low heat.Continue to stir for approximately 5 minutes and remove from heat.Let vinegar cool.After vinegar has cooled pour back into your glass bottles using a funnel.Place the cap back on your bottles, label the bottle identifying the product with a date, and if you’re giving the vinegar as a gift put some ribbons on the bottles.

****The raspberry vinegar is good when mixing with your salad dressing for salad, drizzled over fruit or used for dipping bread.Enjoy!!

Once cooled, pour back into glass bottles (I'm making a mess on the counter).

Final product, two bottles for gifts (I need to decorate bottles first) and
two jars for me :-)

Our weekend was great, Bulldog Man returned home from a business trip.We went out and had a lovely date night together down at Autographs (in town). This place has the best steaks in town, served with salad, grilled corn and a dinner roll to die for.Accomplished all our in town running around/errands.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

I found this project to make bird seed wreaths and thought; I would try making a wreath first hand.I followed the recipe, mixed the bird seed mixture, greased my bundt cake pan with nonstick cooking spray, spooned the mixture into the bundt cake pan, pressed down each layer of spooned in mixture (to make sure it was firm), and let it set over night to dry as instructed.The next day, I was supposed to just turn the bundt pan upside down (carefully), and the wreath was to slide out.Yeah, right!!!!!The bird seed wreath came out in 50 million pieces (no picture taken).What to do….. oh, all I could do was smile

Smile and swear under my breath

and pickup the towel I was using (to prevent a mess), walk to the back door and fling the 50 million pieces of bird seed all over the back yard.The birds loved it!

My 2nd attempt in making the bird seed wreaths (used tea cups to see if this concept would work and because I didn’t have enough gelatin to make a large wreath). I went back to the computer and found a different recipe.The first recipe had just too much flour in the mixture and it dried the wreath out badly.I found another recipe; this one worked…..YAY!!!!!Now that I know it works, the next time I go to the grocery store, I can pick up more Knox Gelatin to make wreath with ribbon to hang in the tree for the birds.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Blogger Friends, please check out Mike Yukon’s blog --- Living Prepared ---Mike is a great guy, and a friend.He has all kinds of ideas worth checking out.My husband and I have learned several things from Mike’s blog

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

I’m not a big fan of spiders, especially when you get up in the morning and go to run the water in the sink to make coffee and a big spider jumps from the sink at you. I screamed, not expecting a spider, and our son came running asking, “what’s wrong Mom”??By this time, I already had the spider captured in an old jelly jar.Apparently sometime during the night this spider ended up in the sink and couldn’t get out.I did this so Bulldog Man could identify him when he had a chance.This way we can figure out what were dealing with and make or buy a mix that will kill this specific spider.

Raspberry Vinegar,today I started to make flavored vinegar.The vinegar will be great on salads, fruits and maybe bread.Yet another idea, I plan on making as potential Christmas gifts.

Items Needed/Ingredients

1 large jar w/lid

1 spoon

2 (12.7 ounce) bottles of organic white wine vinegar, (I used oak aged vinegar, and you can use any white wine vinegar.I will also keep the bottles the vinegar came in, wash them, remove labels and will reuse at the end of this process)

4 (6 ounce containers of fresh raspberries)

*3 cups sugar (after 10 days)

Instructions

Place all raspberries in large jar.Pour both bottles of white wine vinegar in jar. Stir container, seal tightly and place container in a cool dark place for 10 days.Make sure to stir daily for 10 days.After 10 days, strain berries from vinegar. Place vinegar in a pot, add 3 cups of sugar and boil until all sugar is dissolved.Let cool and place in bottles (existing bottles, seal and label).To decorate, place a Christmas bow or homemade decoration on the bottle.

Items/Ingredients Needed

Place Raspberries into Jar

Add White Wine Vinegar

Stir and close lid

Store in a dark and cool place for 10 days (remember to stir each day). After 10 days, I will update my blog with next steps (steps outlined above).

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Today was one of those overcast days.The temperature stayed around 84 degrees and the sun kept fighting to get through the clouds.It was beautiful enough outside to start cutting back the over grown trees in the garden area and at the side of the house.

It was also one of those days where you stripped down the beds and washed all the linens and towels in the house.When I was bringing two of the clean blankets back into the house from the garage, I ended up not lifting my foot high enough to clear the step and fell hard into the door frame nearly breaking my arm.I gave myself a very nice bruise.

Bulldog Man created a fishing rod holder to place on the wall above our furnace in the garage.The fishing poles will be out of the way and available for easy access.We looked at several fishing rod holders in town and the price varied from $20 - $40 dollars.We both thought this was a bit ridiculous for something extremely simple to make.Bulldog Man decided to make the rod holder himself costing him a whole 80 cents to create, 30 minutes of actual work time and overnight drying time for the glue.

Talk about fish, yes…..I baked salmon from Nova Scotia tonight with fresh citrus, cooked up sweet potatoes and cut up fresh pineapple for dinner.Dinner was delicious and nice and light for the evening J

Tonight, the State of Oklahoma has issued an alert for all residence residing within the state for West Nile virus.One woman has lost her life to the virus and 36 are in ICU at local hospitals infected with the virus.All residence need to use mosquito spray with (N,N-diethyl-m-toluamide) aka: deet when outside.

Thursday, August 9, 2012

I wanted to take this opportunity to welcome Claudia Fugate. Thank you for joining my blog. Hey Blogger friends, check out this blog, http://gardeningnaturallywithclaudia.blogspot.comyou won’t be disappointed. Claudia is a Gardener, and Public Speaker. She was featured in 2 magazines and also chosen by Ohio Association Garden Club as Outstanding Amateur Gardener for Region 3.Glad to have you following my blog, please sit back and enjoy the ride.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Yesterday, early morning, the clouds rolled in and temperatures took a nice nose dive.It was actually 72 degrees in the early morning hours.

The afternoon temperature peaked at 105; that was before the rain.Yes, we had a nice gentle rain for 45 minutes, and a beautiful double rainbow appeared.Sorry, no pictures. We went into town to meet up with some friends to have dinner, they were returning home to Texas in their RV from their family visit to Wisconsin. We had a great dinner and visit at the local Indian Casino.

This morning, I went in for a follow up with my Orthopedic Surgeon on my hip pain.He wanted to see how things were going after weeks of physical therapy.The end result, a nice big needle in the really bad hip and another needle in a couple of weeks for the other hip. I was totally surprised on how painless the procedure was.The doctor used a sonogram machine and one really big Ass needle; yes I said the word Ass. Approximately 6 minutes later, my throbbing pain was gone.The doctor stated “by tomorrow you won’t feel anything”.I can’t wait!!!!As for the lower back, we will continue therapy at the gym.

In conclusion, our fires are contained.Prayers are being sent to those families who lost their homes, farms and one dear family who lost a loved one in the fire.The fire closest to our home was like walking through hell.It was 100 feet tall, burning through fields, forest, homes, farms, cars and gas tanks.The fire burned fast and furious, everything now looks terribly devastated, black, dried out, and dead.

I share with you a new life, a new bloom of my orchid.It’s something alive and not devastated.God Bless Oklahoma,

Saturday, August 4, 2012

The fire close to where we live remains burning, but has been contained.FYI, we are okay!!Approximately 8,000 acres burnt in this fire yesterday. The local news media states approximately 54,000 acres in Oklahoma burnt yesterday alone.

The entire state is under a burn ban which was recently issued by our Governor because of the severe drought.

Latest news from Channel 9 OKC, several of the fires were caused by cigarette butts, burning garbage, catalytic converters, lightning and the worst; a damned arsonist. Acres have burned, many homes, and businesses destroyed.The temperatures are extreme, and 7 firefighters have been injured.

Friday, August 3, 2012

I thought it was going to really rain today, dark clouds were over the top of us, temperatures dropped and then it rained……a total of 3 minutes.Within minutes our temperatures jumped from 98 to 116 degrees and we were greeted with what I call a hot “slap your Momma” breeze.

This afternoon, our Governor issued a burn ban for the entire state of Oklahoma.Everything is dry outside, grass is burnt, vegetable garden shot, and trees are dying.This afternoon, fires broke out throughout the state because people don’t have common sense.Throwing cigarettes out windows, burning brush or trash, cutting dry grass, driving on dry grass where the catalytic converter sparks the grass.

Early this afternoon, a massive grass fire broke out not too far from our home.The fire was under control at one point, and then the flames hit something, causing explosions, and now the fire is moving rapidly; burning trees, grass, and buildings. The fire(s) are all around our county and about 5 miles from our home.We’re prepared to evacuate if need be.Emergency radios are actively running.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

When it’s too hot outside (temperature’s 116 today), what do you make for dinner?Definitely not something hot; how about something cold? How about something a little sweet, savory, and refreshing? A salad that will fill you up and not make you feel weighted down?Tonight, I made Couscous Salad.Bulldog Man loves to try new things, whereas, Tank doesn’t.Lucky for me, Tank is working and won’t be home to try this refreshing salad.I’ve placed the recipe below for your convenience.

Refreshing Couscous Salad

Ingredients

1 box instant plain couscous (following instructions on preparing)

½ cut dried sweet Craisins

4 dried apricot pieces, diced

¼ cup chopped dates

1 yellow or red pepper, diced

½ cup of chopped cherry tomatoes

¼ chopped purple onion

2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

1 teaspoon salt

ground black pepper (to taste)

1 tablespoon lemon juice

2 tablespoons orange juice

2 to 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

¼ cup of feta cheese

½ cup, toasted, sliced, almonds or walnuts

Directions

Cook plain couscous as instructed on the box and let cool on side of stove. Once cool, place all ingredients (except nuts) in bowl and mix, cover and place in refrigerator until nice and cold.Put nuts on a baking sheet in a 350-degree oven until nuts are brown.Remove from oven as soon as you smell them or they get slightly brown.Place off to the side until nuts have cooled.Before serving, sprinkle salad with nuts.* You can add anything to this salad and it will taste wonderful.Some people add meat, more vegetables, and others more fruit.

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